The Weekly Compete Pulse

Happy weekend! Hopefully the new year finds you well as we bring you a round-up of the top content we shared this week: notes on email marketing statistics, optimized link creation, keeping leads in your sales funnel, and SEO predictions for 2014.

10 Email Marketing Stats that Will Blow You Away

I’m a bit of an email junkie and have about 8 different accounts synced to my phone, so this blog post particularly caught my eye.

This collection of handy stats and infographs comes with several tips on how to tailor email/listserv efforts to heighten clickthrough rates (CTR).

Simple but effective, this article helps you strategize with intent (for example, personalizing subject lines, providing social sharing buttons, or optimizing the message for mobile viewing).

Most importantly, the stats show that email isn’t dead — it will continue to grow and should remain an important part of your digital marketing gameplan.

 Creating Links that Offer the Best User Experience

There’s no question about it: links are important, and we spend quite a bit of time and effort directing traffic all over the web. It’s less common, however, to think about how links should be presented in order to increase CTR.

This article provides basic tips on styling links for your users’ ease of use. These easy and practical applications can help keep users in your marketing funnel.

From small changes like link text color differences to content-based strategizing, you’ll learn how to make your digital content browsing experience a cut above the rest.

How to Stop Leads from Leaking Out of Your Sales Funnel

Is your sales funnel causing you to lose out on business? We hope not! This B2B case study takes a closer look at how a WAN software optimization company improved their mid-funnel marketing process to stop warm leads from dropping out of the funnel.

Sharing a step-by-step approach to tackling the issue, the Online Marketing Institute explains specific ways companies can close up such leaks.

Even if tech/B2B-focused, the case study still provides basic tips and instructions on how to rethink your online marketing strategy to ensure that leads follow through.

12 SEO Experts Weigh In on 2014 SEO Predictions

SEO is an ever-changing, dynamic environment, especially as more and more of our world becomes digitally integrated. So what’s in store for SEO industry for 2014? Business 2 Community interviews 12 experts from the digital marketing field on the topics of big industry changes and evolving personal SEO priorities.

Each of the experts also provides a few tips or suggestions for the new year, so check out some ways that SEO strategies will adapt in 2014.

How SEO has Changed: SEO Techniques and Practices for 2014

This article from Search Engine People also look at SEO’s near future, but provides a more intensive step-by-step approach.

Practical tips are carefully laid out in a more pedantic approach, so do take a look at this to get a more holistic and less varied look at how you can best plan out your 2014 SEO strategy!

What did you find interesting in the world of digital marketing this week? Share your thoughts, links, and comments below!